Amazon’s podcast studio Wondery has partnered with podcast production company Novel to launch a new true crime podcast debuting on Wondery+.
The new six-part series, titled Stolen Hearts, focuses on a Welsh police sergeant who falls for the wrong man, and is hosted by comedian Kerry Godliman.
The show launched on Monday, coming first to Wondery’s premium subscription platform, Wondery+, where listeners can hear the complete series ad-free. This will be followed by an ad-free release of the full series on Amazon Music for Amazon Prime and Amazon Music Unlimited customers on 6 February. Weekly ad-supported episodes will also be released on all podcast services from this date.
The new show marks the latest partnership between Wondery and Novel, with the previous result being Harsh Reality, another true crime series which met with significant success when it launched in December 2021 and went to the top of Apple Podcasts’ charts in both the UK and US. According to sources familiar with the partnership, the two companies will also be working together on a further four new podcasts as part of an ongoing deal.
"It's a huge pleasure for Novel to collaborate once again with Wondery on a show that blends crime thriller with a heart-breaking stranger-than-fiction love story," said Novel's chief content officer Max O'Brien. "Whilst Stolen Hearts is a true-life local story, written and researched by a UK team, which touches on the fascinating world of Britain's criminal underbelly, the wider themes of the podcast will entertain and engage audiences across the globe. We set out to merge rom com and true crime and I believe the team really delivered.”
Novel produces a number of successful podcasts for a range of clients, including the Bellingcat Podcast, Call Me Mother, and The Superhero Complex. The company’s creative director of development Willard Foxton has previously emphasised the importance of maintaining diverse and well-staffed development teams for generating compelling concepts.
“I'm a 42 year old white middle class parent,” he said at Podcast Day 24, “so that makes me great at coming up with things like parenting shows, but it doesn't make me great at coming up with things that are appealing to people that are on TikTok. So you need diversity in your team, you really need to have different viewpoints, different backgrounds, different nationalities across your team, and then find the most incredible stories you can.”
